Bleeding Edge: Elliot Security (Elliot Security Series Book 2) by Evie Mitchell (short story to read .txt) 📗

to look at Luc. His sleepy eyes met mine, even as his hand snaked out to the mobile on the bedside table.

“This is Lu–” My mobile’s ringtone cut him off. I lost eye contact as I turned, pushing up off the bed reaching for my phone.

“You’ve got Emmie,” I greeted, my eyes coming to rest on Luc. He scowled, glaring at the wall as he listened intently.

“Em… Shit. Shit, Em. Shit.” Declan, the caller, sounded panicked, his voice breathy. He was one of the guys in charge of our software roll out tonight.

“Tell me,” I demanded, watching as Luc twisted off the bed, bending to pull on the briefs he’d dropped in our earlier haste. My stomach twisted as my blood ran cold.

“It’s… the whole system…”

“Declan–”

“They’re in. The whole thing is fucked.”

I started moving. “We’re on our way.” I hit the end button as I stepped towards the dresser.

“Emmie–”

I threw out a hand, halting Luc.

“I know.” We shoved on clothes in silence, my brain racing a million miles an hour. How had they gotten in, what had they taken?

Who would they hurt?

Luc pulled me into his chest.

“It’s going to be okay. Remember that.” I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

We got to the office in record time. As we swiped in, the first thing I noticed were the lights. Every single light was on illuminating our office.

Next was the noise. Printers, phones, people yelling. It was pandemonium, and we had walked right into the middle. I glanced at Luc, noting his tight jaw. He’d obviously come to the same realisation. We were the last to arrive.

The hair on the back of my neck rose. I glanced about, searching, automatically checking for the nearest exit.

“Pax.” Luc’s deep voice cut through the noise. All heads swung our way, conversation halting. My hand found Luc’s.

“War room. Everyone. Now,” Pax ordered.

I ignored, or tried to, the way people, my friends, looked at me, then skittered their gaze away.

My belly clenched, fear churning my gut.

Luc directed me to a seat, snagging the one next to it. Pax stood at the top of the table, his face rough.

“Okay, here’s what we know. Max?”

Max stood, adjusting the papers before him.

“At 1700 hours, I clocked on for night shift. As you all know, Declan and I were running updates on the system tonight.” He paused, glancing down at his notes.

“At about 1830, we picked up an anomaly. Declan went to the affected computer and found this.” Max held up a small thumb-drive. “Once removed, we started running diagnostics. The fault continued. At approximately 2000 hours Declan logged in as Administrator, at which point his profile was immediately compromised.”

Declan interrupted, “I signed in as admin expecting an easy fix. I’m sorry, I thought it was a–”

Pax held up a hand. “Continue.”

“By 2100 hours, it had accessed the administrator profile and locked Declan out. It was at this stage the system started to print these…” He handed a pile of papers to Ben, who took one and passed it on.

Max held up an example. Printed on the clean white paper sat a photo of me. A still screenshot from a video. The photo had me in side profile. I was laughing and clapping as Jetta danced in front of me. It was a scene from the rehabilitation clinic the night Luc and his band had performed for us. My eyes dropped to the thick black letters.

WE FOUND YOU

Bile burned the back of my throat as all heat left my body in a rush, fear turning my veins to ice. They’d never tried this. This outright attack. Insidious warnings, threats. But never like this where anyone could see.

All eyes were on me. At a distance, I heard my name being called. Luc turned my chair, filling my vision as my brain kicked back into gear.

“Emmie?” His warm hands framed my face. “Beautiful?”

I blinked at him. “I’m okay.” I jerked my head away and turned back to the table. “I’m okay,” I repeated, looking back at Max. “Finish it.”

He paused, glancing at Luc and Pax for permission. They exchanged a look before nodding in unison. Jack, seated on my other side, handed me the stack of print outs. I took one, blindly handing the pile on to Luc.

There I was. In vivid colour, every pixel another dot creating the shape of me.

Max continued. “By 2230 Pax and Sawyer arrived to assist.” He nodded at Sawyer, who leaned forward, taking over.

“I started running countermeasures, trying to see what they were accessing. It looked like a data hack. They were after personnel information.” Sawyer grinned at me. “Luckily they mistook the dummy files you created as real.”

“Dummy files?” This came from Kel at the far end of the table.

Max nodded. “When we were running our pen-test last year, Emmie created dummy files. She set up a bunch of fake personnel files. Even created fake case numbers, fake clients, fake accounts. The money in them is real, she used the Christmas slush fund. At the time, it was all done with Pax’s permission. After the pen-test late last year, we had Christmas holidays and they were scheduled for deletion early this year. But then Emmie was shot, and we all got extra case work, so their deletion date kept getting pushed back and”−he shrugged− “we just never got around to it.”

Sawyer slumped casually in his chair, a pen spinning absently in one hand. “She did a fucking ace job on those dummies. When we did the tests last year, some of the guys didn’t realise they were fakes. It’s why our team”−he flicked a hand between us−“won. Leaving the dummies is actually not a bad thing. It may have just saved our company.”

Max nodded vigorously. “By the time Sawyer arrived, Declan had shut down the servers. Once Sawyer got here, we didn’t reboot. It was too essential to keep them out.”

“So you’re saying we lost nothing.” This came from Luc.

“No.” Sawyer shook his head, answering for Max. “No, we did lose stuff.”

“What?”

“Emmie.” All eyes flew